Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Ok, this may very well be the last Minitek update. We don't want this to go on too long, but we want to make sure that Resident Advisor - a website we value and whose podcasts we go gaga for - are represented here. Shortly after the statement issued by the Minitek/Minimoo promoters on the Mblog, which was posted here yesterday, RA had an exclusive interview with Jenny Tan to follow up.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Yep, we're still having Minitek updates. Looking back on previous posts, the coverage is really one big clusterfuck. A lot of the reporting doesn't say much because it was hard to make much of it, but I feel Jenny Tan - 1/2 of the creative foundation of Minimoo, which spawned Minitek - worded herself with a fierce confidence that a female promoter needs to have in today's climate.

By "it," I mean the 1,000+ word statement on the Minitek blog today, which outlines the many problems the festival faced this past weekend in New York City.

The core is here: "[the penn plaza pavillion hotel] had misrepresented their certificate of occupancy (the official document that restricts the amount of people the venue can legally hold). there was no reason to believe that the 38.000sf venue couldn’t hold the people that had paid for weekend passes at the very least. once the police showed up, the manager of the venue was forced to show the “real” certificate of occupancy and as it turned out, the venue didn’t even have one! the one that was eventually shown to the police was from 1963 and claimed an occupancy of only 208 people, but it was long void as the venue had changed their use a few times since the permit was issued more than 40 years ago."

We want to see Minitek happen next year (this includes YOU) and I think giving the promoters a fair chance is worthwhile. If Minitek 2009 aims, fires, and blows its target to pieces, the 2008 series of events will probably go down in history in a much more positive light...it's really not the mistakes you make, but the things you do to rectify them, and if there's anything worth saying about minimal techno promoters in America, well, it is a labor of love.

Monday, September 15, 2008

Our friends over at Trouble & Bass have been holding a remix contest for the release of Little Jinder's "Polyhedron" EP on their label. Recently, the match came to a close and our friend Coralcola made it as a runner up! While his remix will not be featured on the release, it's currently available for download on the Trouble & Bass blog. This was an excellent idea, and we're wondering if we should try and do the same. Congratulations to all that won, and will appear on the EP, as well!

I H8 Minimoo"Learn to crawl before you try to walk!...this is a massive FAIL."

Rhythmism"While we do love Studio B and their much improved sound system, the approximate 600 capacity space is going to be completely overrun and unable to accommodate all ticketholders."

Resident Advisor forums"Minimoo has not apologized or posted any new information on their website, and that screams of 'we shit the bed on this and don't know what to do, but at least we have your asshole's money!' It's not very fucking hard to figure out the firecode-reason given for police presence-of a venue you're considering for an event."

Sunday, September 14, 2008

For some of us, last night made up for being left out of the Penn Plaza Pavillion on Friday, and the late start to Saturday's events. Minitek by Night was rescheduled at Studio B, and arriving around midnight, there wasn't much chaos on the outside. At one point, the pre-bought ticket holders and guestlist folk were pushed aside, allowing only cash up-front paying customers to enter quickly. No one knew where the order had come from, but it almost seemed like it was an independent decision by the venue and its bouncers. This is highly unlikely, but considering how it was put together at the time, you could simply say "Yes, I'll pay $40," move up front and through the entrance, and then head right instead of left (cash window) to the will call table. For the next hour, things were difficult to decipher as everyone seemed to be settling in.

Magda at Studio B

2am, the music stopped for about two minutes. Some of us quickly debated leaving, and that's exactly when Magda came on deck. The immediate feedback was an explosive frenzy. Around 4am, Format:B quickly moved into their set, taking the night all the way to its 6am end as the sun started rising. It was during these four hours that the magic of Minitek happened, and sharing the dance floor with Mark Ingram and Patrick Barry, it's safe to say that we never left the dance floor. To what it seems, Pan-Pot never made it on, but they were standing in the booth behind Format:B. Unless the party restarted after the music shut down, the applaud ceased, and the house lights went on, we definitely missed it.

End of the night applause!

The night, in our eyes, turned into a success. Up in the lounge area, people were friendly and interactive, and many felt that everyone was there with a desire to see Minitek take over the night. Now 8pm on Sunday, Audion should be taking the stage at this very moment, and being the one act left that was high on the list, it's sad to say that I've already clocked out for this weekend. Presumably, those who attended and those who organized Minitek have much to think about and take home. All we can hope is that they decide to set this up again next year, and take it above and beyond its launch. Many kudos to those that invested so much time and money into making this happen!

Back to the office...

*9.25.08 11pm Note: Turns out the post-Magda set was Pan-Pot, and Format:B were moved to Club Europa. Apparently the night was split in two between Studio B and Club Europa. Excellent. If that is true, considering Studio B was the only advertised venue...well, that is just shite.

Stopping by Minitek Day on Coney Island, the entry into the area was slow, but the bouncers were much friendlier than last night. Understandable, as no one seemed to have any authority breathing down their necks. I have to admit, being under the impression that much of the staff is being outsourced, everyone I've approached with a question - whether or not they could provide and answer - has been very courteous.

The music was great, and for those that wanted to catch Derek Plaslaiko's set, he was on and off - rotating with the other DJs. While there, I caught up with a local Bostonian about Rebel's post-Pavillion shutdown. Apparently Marco Carola and Paco Osuna - who were slated for the last two slots on last night's bill - showed up at Rebel and went head for head from, roughly, 4am and 8am. "Those two...together...it's the best booking out there," he said.

photo by Chris Carella

Tonight's festivities have been rumored to be moved to Rebel, and then Webster Hall, but as of now there's a confirmed establishment for Minitek Night to Studio B. An excellent choice! Minitek's intentions will most likely be a solid reality tonight. After a food coma following by a nap and strong cup of Greek coffee, it's time to head off the island (Long Island, that is), and head back to the madness. See you there!

Our experiences at Minitek last night were much like others. Since the event was happening from 10pm to 8am, we arrived at 2am to the Penn Plaza Pavillion hotel to find 300+ people in line, wrapping around the corner down 33rd street. At the entrance, the VIP line was anything but single file; a cluster of up to 100 people calling, texting, and looking around for friends that had more information on what was going on. Bouncers were angry, no one was moving, and the rumor most overheard was that for a 3,000 capacity venue, they had a certificate for only 300. No way. The minds behind Minitek are much smarter than that, and the other scuttlebutt on the street was that the hotel simply decided to shut it down.

So far, there's an incredible amount of concern for the coordinators of the festival and those who spent money beyond their ticket to attend. According to Red Beatle most of the crowd regrouped at Rebel night club (on 30th between 7th & 8th), and it lived on with as much success as could be gathered.

We ran into Will Lynch & Sarah Joy Murray on the street - friends of Basstown who've played opening slots in the last year (Lynch will also be opening for Shed @ Make It New on September 25th) - but Bostonians instinctively fled to Bunker by 3am, catching the last hour of Derek Plaslaiko's set. Mark Ingram, Sergio Santos, Jason Bosserman...the list goes on. Even Teh Choyce (!), who headlined the East Coast Boast residency at Basstown in January, was present and wasted. The music was great, but all we could talk about is hoping that the Minitek folk get things sorted out. Personally, I'm sure they will, and no matter what happens this weekend will go down, positively, in the history of attempt to unite lovers of electronic music in America. We're looking forward to the next three installments, ready to dance!

Friday, September 12, 2008

Ready to shut down the office computer for the last time this week, the next destination is MINITEK. Join Vicki on her sail around the techno universe all the way from midtown Manhattan to Coney Island. In two words, this is going to be fucking. epic.

Here are some of the art installations that are happening, to entice those in the East Coast area to spend their last minute cash on this event. It's the first of what we all expect to be many more - a legend in the making, and a dream come true.

DAITO MANABE - Tokyo, JAPANwiimote DJ and RFID light sequencerRedefining existing media and technologies from unique angles, Daito has been active in various fields, such as art, design, and even research and development. He produces the output of sounds, images, and light through analyzing and transforming the numerical values gained from various sensors and input devices. He will perform at the festival as an innovative musician with a Wiimote DJ performance and also as a groundbreaking RFID artist. The aisle to lead people to the hall are veiled with the lights and sounds and will look like an aurora— this is a fantastic view that technologies create. The color card placed on the table decides the color of the aisle. You can also combine more than one color card. For example, if you place a red card and a blue card on the table, the resulting color would be purple. When the cards are placed on the table the aisle color changes immediately. Also, the sounds change with the light changes. The use of RFID in the installation is groundbreaking and a sight to see. It will also illuminate the path to the night venue’s dancefloor.

OWEN WALLIS + JORDAN HOCHENBAUM - Los Angeles, USRoots“Roots” is an interactive and multi-touch interface, where multiple people can collaborate in making music in a dynamic & visually responsive environment. When a user presses their finger on the tables surface, a vine-like structure will branch out and generatively maneuver around the surface, actively triggering sounds and loops. Harnessing “multi-touch” technology, a single user, or multiple people can very quickly create dense and lush generatively evolving sound collages and compositions, simply by pressing their fingers anywhere on the tables surface.

DILO - Buenos Aires, ARGENTINAPercussa Audiocubes – Live performancesImagine beautifully designed cubes made of white plastic, with built-in full colour lighting and powerful wireless computer technology, capable of sensing your hands and cube placement and orientation. These are the Percussa AudioCubes, which let you create sound and music with your computer in hands-on and powerful ways. The cubes let you explore, discover and enjoy, without the usual complexity that comes with music technology. Through their MIDI capabilities, AudioCubes work with music software such as Ableton Live and Propellerheads Reason.

SENSEable - Boston, USCity Lab (MIT) New York Talk Exchange (NYTE) illustrates the global exchange of information in real time by visualizing volumes of long distance telephone and IP (Internet Protocol) data flowing between New York and cities around the world. To reveal the relationships that New Yorkers have with the rest of the world, New York Talk Exchange asks: How does the city of New York connect to other cities? With which cities does New York have the strongest ties and how do these relationships shift with time? How does the rest of the world reach into the neighborhoods of New York?

JAMES PATTEN - New York, USAudio PadAudiopad is a composition and performance instrument for electronic music, which tracks the positions of objects on a tabletop surface and converts their motion into music. One can pull sounds from a giant set of samples, juxtapose archived recordings against warm synthetic melodies, cut between drum loops to create new beats, and apply digital processing all at the same time on the same table. Audiopad not only allows for spontaneous reinterpretation of musical compositions, but also creates a visual and tactile dialogue between itself, the performer, and the audience.

MARIUS WATZ - Oslo, NORWAYVisual processingMarius Watz is an artist concerned with generative systems for creating visual form, still, animated or realtime. His signature is a brand of visual hedonism, marked by colourful organic shapes and a maximalist attitude. Most of his works deal with drawing machines implemented in software, live visuals for music or large-scale projections of plastic visual systems. Watz just moved from Berlin to New York. His tools of choice are Java, Processing, VVVV and Flash.

BURAK ARIKAN - Istanbul, TurkeyVisual processingBurak Arikan is an artist and researcher who is based in New York and Istanbul. At the festival, Burak will perform pieces from the Meta-Control project. It will include the new versions of existing pieces and three new softwares. Meta- Control is a collection of visual/ kinetic performative artifacts. It contains visual software pieces that are often designed to expose their own control mechanisms. Meta-Control is a project started by Burak Arikan and Ali Demirel, and first performed with Richie Hawtin’s music.

PAUL PRUDENCE - London, UKVisual procesingPaul is an artist and real-time visual performer working with generative/computational systems, audio responsive visual feedback and processed video. His projects « SonLattice /Talysis » is a real-time audio responsive work and is part of a larger group of works exploring software simulated video feedback .It is made using the video synthesis toolkit VVVV. In mythology the process could be identified in the form of Ouroborous, the snake who eats his own tale, a symbol of self-perpetuating loops and a symbol as ‘output as input’.

DEVAN SIMUNOVICH + NIKA OFFENBAC - New York, USVideo InstallationDevan Simunovich and Nika Offenbac founded CTRL in 2004 as a vehicle to create films, experimental multimedia projects and installations. They will present you two installations from their "Extended Room" series. ”Speak My Language” invites attendees to experience an ultrasensory environment to re-imagine how we interact with urban modes of sign communication. “Volume” is an illusionary extension of a physical architectural space.

NORMAN FAIRBANKS - Berlin, GERMANYTenori-on performanceAudio conceptualist Norman Fairbanks has always remained at the cutting edge of music production, so when he first heard about Tenori-on back in 2005 he felt compelled to investigate the myriad possibilities of this hybrid instrument. His audio concept “7 Days Microsleep” is deemed to be the first album solely made with a Tenori-On. Fairbanks’ 90 minutes live set at Minitek will be an eclectic sonic trip combining a Tenori-On performance with electronic sounds created by custom-made machines, including a rather unconventional black robot...

ALBERT HWANG - New York, USwiremapAlbert Hwang will show the Wiremap, an innovative projection technique that builds a real and interactive 3d image by manipulating light from a projector. The projector throws its beam on an array of vertical wires. From the projectors single-point perspective, all the wires are evenly spaced from one another. However, due to the randomized dimension of depth, from any other perspective, the wires create a 3d map of cyberspace. The result is a floating, glowing 3D object made entirely of light. This object will move around, change in color or size ac- cording to keyboard and mouse input.

Good call by David Day (surprise, surprise) on noting Athens, Greece based label Klik Records. Launched in 2003, it's home to many Greek artists, but also includes others from around Europe. It's very gorgeous, much in a way that Basstown particularly loves the more gentle tracks from Kompakt artists. More information is on their site, and if you're looking for an unexploited label to love that continues to grow, be sure to subscribe your ears to this collective.

According to Make It New resident Baldur, Ricardo Villalobos has been playing this track by SIS all summer, but finally released it on vinyl. This past Thursday, "Trumpeta" made its premiere at Make It New, and it completely blew us away. At first listen, I thought it might be an Italoboyz track because of their deliverance of variety with opera (Viktor Casanova) and jazz (Bahia), but it is, in fact, the German producer SIS. The tune is highly sought after, but Baldur was able to acquire a 12" and let us indulge in all of its glory. Now, it's your turn.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

The four man crew known as the Glitch Mob have been shattering sound systems and breaking down musical boundaries for well over 2 years now, and it is with great pleasure that Boston gets to have a taste. Edward Ma aka “edIT” of The Glitch Mob touches down in Boston for a very special night of beats, breaks, and bass.

A quick history lesson on edIT: This “Con Artist” is a Massachusetts native and former Konkrete Jungle L.A. (now defunct) resident DJ. As a Konkrete L.A. resident he shared the stage with Hive, Daddy Kev, James Tai & Mic Rockers Busdriver, P.E.A.C.E. and Mikah 9. In 2004 he dropped his debut solo album Crying Over Pros For No Reason, which was released on Planet Mu records. From there he went on to remix and mash tunes geared more towards the dance floor. His popularity began to soar and before he knew it URB magazine was telling people to keep their eyes peeled for this up and coming artist in 2006. His next major release, Certified Air Raid Material, was focused more on his personal production and showcasing his creative skill behind the buttons. The highly anticipated four-year album in the making will be dropping some time this year on Alpha Pup Records.

edIT always brings his ‘A’ game to the decks, laptop, or whatever he uses to create, manipulate, and destroy beats. “The way you bring [the music] live is what matters," Ma stated in his interview with XLR8R magazine. "The whole purpose of why we’re doing this is that we’re basically out there writing music to wow ourselves and wow other people. So the connection with the audience is huge for us.”

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Tonight, the Athens-born goddess K.atou will be a special guest at Midweek Techno. Calm and collected, her beats are pristine and with the strong feminine touch that is often revered in skilled European females. Soul Clap first saw K.atou outside on the terrace at the Resolut party at Detroit Techno Fest back in May. "She was playing some of the dopest classic house and future techno beats we heard the whole weekend," says Eli. "So we're super psyched to have her coming all the way from Athens via Berlin for her first Boston appearance ever at MIDWEEK TECHNO at Pheonix Landing!"

K.atou started collecting electronic music oriented records at the age of 17, djing at the age of 18, when she played as a guest dj at one of the biggest and most upfront clubs in athens(her home town) Bossa Nostra. Then back to Corfu she continued with frequent parties and a radio show every weekend at Life radio, as well as a series of parties named "Elektro Soundz..". The sessions lasted a year, till she moved to UK due to a university scholarship. London filled her flycase with new sounds and a further view on the dance scene and gave her great feedback on the way back. As soon as she got back she got frequent gigs at cafeina(athens) and later at astron bar (athens-psiri), and monthly night as an after hours party at almodobar,gazi .In UK it seems she found one of the most inspiring friends and formed a team Les Rythmes Minimales along with DJ Fanny G promoting the minimal sound around Greece. Winter 2005 found K.atou (aka katie_m) with another collaboration along with Zero:One (I<3Aki, Minimal London) & Bonzo creating a team called .:MinimalAthens:. Spreading the vibes of minimalism around Athens in several venues..(minimalathens.gr).

In the meantime she performed in different venues in Athen such as: Danza, Factory, Wunderbar, Cafeina, Vanilla, Lithos (Rhodes), Patra, as well as famous Synch festival of contemporary electronic arts on the Red Bull Home Groove stage. In 2006 the NY label Goosehound assigned her as "foreign diplomat". After a trip in US and CAN for music meditating, as she likes to claim, started working on production. First collaboration with Nutown Project found its roof at the respected Berlin based Einmaleins Musik label. She has performed at Animo3 festival Madrid, Macarena club Barcelona, Opera club Cluj, Heat club Oreada, and become as well a member of the London Multivitamins nights family and 2007 will find her between Germany, Belgium, UK, USA, Japan, and many other destinations. K.atou changed her base during 2006 from Athens to London.

P.S. Vicki is particularly thrilled about this because she is Greek and knows absolutely no Greek and female DJs. *faints*

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

This September, Basstown's residency returns with a punch! DJ Sega will be headlining - returning after a triumphant opening set for Diplo back in February. Check the Facebook page for all details. Fliers, Going.com links, and much much more to come!

Down below, we have his set from that gig to get you ready and pumped.

Citizens Of Basstown.

Basstown was started in 2006 when the growth of techno and dance parties around the country became unavoidable, and the virus was hitting the New England city best known for being a college rock town. With the rise of great parties like Hearthrob and Thunderdome, a community of DJs, dancers, party kids, and everyone in between started turning venue tiles into dance floors all across Boston and Cambridge.

The dream of Basstown is happening NOW.

Gone are times of wishing there was more than one or two decent dance parties or events to hear more cerebral techno (you've been to Make It New, ya?). The city of Basstown is exploding alongside its local colleagues. Stand back and watch it burst.

Extended, more verbose but mildly interesting, Basstown bio can be found on MySpace. [read more...]